Joel putnam



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JOEL PUTNAM, OF DANVERS. MASSACHUSETTS.

Letters Patent No. 81,106, dated August 18, 1868.

IMPROVEMENT IN SHOES.

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TO ALL PERSONS TOWHOM THESE PRESENTS MAY COME:

Be it known that I, JOEL PUTNAM, of Danvcrs, in the county of Essex, and State of Massachusetts, have made a new and useful Improvement in Shoes; and do hereby declare the same to be hilly described in the following specification, and represented in the accompanying drawings, of which Figure 1 is a top view,

Figure 2 a longitudinal s'cction, and z Figure 3 a transverse section of a shoe provided with my invention, such shoe having a lacing-slit or opening along its instep, and being provided with a lacing and holes or eyelets to receive it.

Instead of applying a tongue to such lacing-slit in the ordinary-way, that is, by fastening the tongue at its lower end to the instep of the shoe, and leaving the tongue loose in other respects, I afiix to the shoe, on its inner surface, and'close along each edge of the lacing-slit, from end to end thereof, a fly or strip of leather or other proper material.

Thus I use two of these flies or flaps, one to each edge of the lacing-slit, one being to lap on the other, and both being to protect the stocking or leg of the wearer of the.shoe from the lacing, as well as from dust and other'matters, or to operate as a means of closing the lacing-opening as a tongue does.

In the drawings, A denotes the shoe, and 6 b the two flies applied to the lacing-opening c. The lacing and its eyelets arc exhibited at d and e.

The advantage of the fly, applied as described, over the tongue as commonly fastened at one end only to the shoe, is, that it cannot work down into the shoe or get out of place as the tongue is liable to, and in consequence oi being confined along its edge to the shoe, it operates to much better advantage than a tongue to prevent watcr and dirt from getting into the shoe.

v I am credibly informed that a shoe as made with a single fly arranged with its lacing-slit or fastening along its side, in manner as above described, has been in use prior to rny-invcntion; therefore, I make no claim thereto, my invention consisting in having two such flies, so arranged with opposite sides of the lacing-slit, and so formed that one may lap on the other throughout its length; This affords advantages not incident to the single fly, as it completely prevents any dirt, sticks, or other foreign matter or water from working into the shoe between either side of the lacing-slit and its fly, and the two flies by overlapping one another, and being pulled in contact by the lacing, when the shoe is laced to the foot of a person, completely exclude dust and water.

My improvement is not a mere duplication of the single fly, which would consistjin applying two flies to one side of the shoe, but involves the arrangement of the two flies on oppositefsides of the lacing-slit, and so as to lap on one another.

Therefore I claim, as my invention, the new or improved manufacture or shoo as made with two flies applied and fastened along the sides of its lacing-slit, and formed so as to overlap one another under circumstances as specified.

JOEL PUTNAM. Witnesses: 1

R. H.-EDDY, SAMUEL N. Prrnn. 

